Carcascara - Carcascara II

Carcascara are a long-standing group of three Basque musicians, one now based in London and other two in Zarautz, who make what the label is describing as Basque folk meets post-rock. I'm certainly no aficionado of the particularities of Basque folk, though i can certainly identify here what might we understand as traditional folk signifiers, in this instance something akin to the long-form digressional guitar work of the American Primitive style. The post-rock comparison is slightly more curious - i hear little of anything that i might understand as typical of that music. To these ears, Carcascara 2 is ostensibly folk music passed through a filter of experimental composition, incorporating aspects of drone, ambient aesthetics and field recordings. The spirit of post rock, perhaps, but not really its form. Something like the work of Ben Chasny/Six Organs of Admittance feels a more precise point of reference, off-centre folk-derived exploration that is wide enough in scope to escape conventional categorisation. And you know what, when the harmonised vocals arrive towards the end of side two, i'm reminded of just how brilliant those early Iron & Wine records were. Hegoa Diskak make a point of exploring Basque identity, and it's that which is the real point of interest here: three players sitting out of any usual line of sight making music that references more famed iterations of the western canon while retaining its own unique glow. And glow it does with a late evening warmth, music for dusk, as the sun sets on terrain we don't quite know.